Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Insert Aimless Gunshots Here

Inside Adrian's, AKA Master of the Library's, Library Arcanium, an author dropped out of a portal. Slightly shorter than the 5'10" Tash, he seemed dressed for leisure in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Rimless glasses adorned his face, which had beard stubble on it like he had trimmed it earlier. He paused when the sound of Tash calling out for Adrian in a falsely cheerful voice, wondering what Adrian had done to earn him that. Reporting to Tash in that mood made him shudder, but he knew that he had to report. After all, his character had told him Tash might not be happy with him either because he had sent his character in his place to confront a Sue and Stu couple. Knowing that delaying the inevitable would only make it worse, he lazily strode towards Tash's voice.

She apparently heard his approach when he knew he was getting closer, because she cheerfully sung, "Is that you, Adrian? I have something I want to say to you!"

Sighing in worry, this author replied, "It's me, Tash. I only just returned."

"Really, you're back now, "Her voice when from cheerful to sinister as she turned the corner to face him. "Care to tell me what you've been doing while you were away, Kyle?"

Kyle held up his left hand in a forstalling gesture while seemingly putting his right hand through some invisible hole off to his side. When he pulled his hand out, he held a perfectly smooth and seamless sphere about the size of his fist. Holding it up for Tash to look at, he stated, "This is what I've been working on. The Realitium metal I needed to make this is deceptively hard to come by in adequate amounts. However, since it is one of the few materials that a Mary Sue cannot damage, it's perfect for weapons and armor to fight them. With this in my hands, I'll be able to fight effectively against Mary Sues and Gary Stus."

Tash looked at him with major disappointment in her eyes as she said, "Really, a sphere. You spent all that time finding Realitium metal and you used it to make a sphere. Why didn't you make yourself a nice Rapier with that much Realitium?"

Kyle smiled as he spoke, "Because I got lucky and found a load of it between the worlds of Lucky Star and Comic Party. With the combined amount of realism between the two, there was plenty of Realitium to gather. I was able to condense all of it into this sphere and have worked it into an Omni-weapon for my personal use. Any weapon I need, it'll change into. Within limitations, of course."

Tash blinked in surprise, that would be a lot of Realitium. Smiling a bit devilishly, she said, "So, it's complete, is it?"

Kyle nodded, "It has its limitations, but I designed it like that. Also, by using both my genetic code and vital signs, I'm the only person who can use this unless I reset the parameters it checks."

Tash was still smiling as she leaned closer to him and stated, "Well then, you get to test it out on a mission. I'll find you a mission, right this instant!"

She rushed off towards her desk, while Kyle was left in the dust to contemplate what he was in for.

-

The busty, blonde gunner, Rushuna Tendo; calm and fierce swordsman, Yajirou Kojima; and inventive, smart-alecky child balloon-maker, Mikan Kurenai were in some of the biggest trouble in the whole time they've been travelling together. After all, this is the first time that they've had an army on their tail. They don't even know why they're being chased by an army other than the fact that, for some reason, they had a bounty for their capture on their heads in this forested region. Whoever ordered this bounty had a scary amount of information on them also; the details were very precise.

It was while they had stopped for a breather that Kyle presented himself to them. No longer dressed for leisure, he wore a form-fitting and concealing ninjutsu practitioner's garb similar to many he has seen in works of fiction. It looked a little out of place on him because of his glasses and stubble. Yajirou and Mikan were suspicious of him, but he held up his hands in a "intending no harm" gesture. That's when he told them.

"I have need of your assistance. This region is being used as a starting point for a powerful demon to eventually take over the world."

Rushuna's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates in an instant. She took a step back and whispered, "A demon?"

Kyle nodded, "That's right. This kind of demon has two names, depending on whether it's male or female. If it's male, it's called a Gary Stu... if it's female, it's called a Mary Sue. Also, they are hard to deal with because of their overall power and ability. They are almost always human in appearance with exceedingly long names and hideous beauty."

Yajirou gaped at this statement before fumbling for something in his pocket, pulling out a poster of himself, Rushuna and Mikan. Beside the local lord's official seal was a very long name, Amanda Beatrice Connie Deniece Emily Fantasia Gertrude Holly Isabella Jacky Kali Lisa Marrion Nelly Ophelia Patty Quinn Rosa Silvia Terry Urd Valerie Wendy Xena Yvette Zerlina. For whatever reason, the characters had never given that excessively long name a second thought, but if it was truly a demon at work then they have to stop it.
Rushuna looked kind of sad as she ask, "Can't we talk to it and get it to stop?"

Kyle gave a sigh like he was sad too before he answered, "I wish that was an option, but they won't listen. They can't be bargained with nor will they listen to reason. Believing that they are perfect, they'll do anything to reinforce that belief... even if it means corrupting entire worlds to do it."

Mikan scowled at Kyle as she asked in confirmation, "So basically, we're dealing with a perfection obsessed psycho with incredible fighting ability and hideous beauty that will not listen to anything we say and will corrupt any world to prove their perfection? Any other bad news for you to tell us?"

Kyle's head seemed to sink a bit as he replied, "Now that you mention it, I can think of a few more things that might go wrong."

No one had time to ask as the army that's chasing them started to get louder in the background. Motioning for everyone to follow him, Kyle turned and said, "I'll tell you later, but right now, I'd rather not have to fight off an army."

Rushuna, Yajirou and Mikan didn't need to be told twice as everyone started running away from the approaching voices. It would take no stretch of the imagination to say that everyone had didn't wish to be captured so, as they were running, they were doing their best to lay traps in their wake. Well, Mikan and Kyle were able to lay traps without slowing down and Kyle told Rushuna and Yajirou not to slow or stop for any reason.

Unfortunately, one thing made them stop and that was a sheer cliff, dropping directly below into another section of forest. Kyle seemed to sink into his own thoughts as his current companions were debating which way they went. Well, Mikan and Yajirou were debating while Rushuna was trying to calm them down. It was after a few minutes of this debate that they could hear distinct voices for the approaching army. Seeming to make up his mind about whatever he was thinking of, Kyle strode over and then grabbed Yajirou, slinging him over his shoulder. Ignoring Yajirou's protests, he gave Rushuna a look and then leaped off the cliff. Rushuna got the hint, grabbing Mikan and jumping after Kyle.
-

Amanda Beatrice Connie Deniece Emily Fantasia Gertrude Holly Isabella Jacky Kali Lisa Marrion Nelly Ophelia Patty Quinn Rosa Silvia Terry Urd Valerie Wendy Xena Yvette Zerlina was not in a good mood. The black-as-night haired, sparkling black kimono wearing beauty had been using her incredible Mary Sue clairvoyance to follow Rushuna and her group. When Amanda first came to this world, she knew that the main characters had to no longer be threats to her plans and she had two plans to accomplish this. First plan would be to capture the main characters and bring them over to her side, while the second, if her first one failed, would be to simply kill them off.

However, shortly before Kyle met up with Rushuna and the others, Kyle had apparently created a barrier that prevented the Mary Sue Clairvoyance from scrying them. Now knowing that an Author had come to get her, Amanda was setting plan after plan to keep herself in power.

"Of course I can hear you! I'm a Mary Sue, dang it! I can do whatever the heck I want! And right now, I'm going to ban you from narrating on me! So get lost!"

-

Well, that was a first. Whatever, now back to Rushuna and the gang. Yajirou was trying to give Kyle a piece of his mind for that stunt he just pulled. Mikan was exclaiming to Rushuna that the jump was an amazing rush. Pulling out a strange device, Kyle held it up in the air for a moment and then lowered it to look at something on it. Rushuna came up to him after getting both Mikan and Yajirou to calm down and asked him what that device was.

"Mary Sues and Gary Stus warp the very fabric of canon reality around them to fulfill their twisted desires. This device was recently created, by a group that I work for, to portably track that warp. I think the developer had called it the Canon Disruption Tracker. Of course, it's still in the prototype stage so there's not a lot it can do, but it will be enough to make our way to where the Mary Sue is residing."

Mikan once again scowled as she bit out, "So tell us in what direction that Tracker is pointing already!"

Instead of answering or pointing, Kyle started walking in the indicated direction. Deciding that following him is better than staying there, they follow after him.

After traveling for several hours, they final came upon the Local Lord's manor. Right in front of the door was Amanda, with her sparkling black kimono and black-as-night hair, apparently waiting for them.

"I thought I told you to stop that Mr. Narrator! I thought I had banned you from narrating on me!"

Well, an Author presence naturally overwrites any ban created by a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. So I am free to narrate on anyone present now. But that doesn't matter right now. Kyle was getting impatient so he rushed at Amanda. All of a sudden, from behind Rushuna and her friends, came the click of hundreds of guns. Turning around to face the direction the sound came from, Rushuna, Yajirou and Mikan found themselves face to face with the army they had thought they had escaped from.

Amanda was smiling as Kyle came to a halt while turning towards the army.

"How do you plan on countering this? I may not have been able to affect Rushuna and her friends with my powers before you stepped in, but I'm a Mary Sue so I have powers to spare. After you left my little army at the top of that cliff, I merely used my power to teleport them here so they could ambush you. But wait, there's more..."

With a wave of her hand, all of the guns the men in her army had changed into something Rushuna, Yajirou, and Mikan were very familiar with. Living guns made out of green metal that can carve through solid rock with a blast of compressed air; Flash of a Demon. Kyle put his hands together, as if in prayer.

Amanda started gloating, "What are you doing? Praying for a Higher Power to save you? That won't work, not while I'm in control of this situation!"

She laughed; a spine tingling, sinister laughter. Without end, she laughed and laughed. That is, until she noticed a glowing circle beginning to surround Kyle. Then it hit her, he wasn't praying for a deity to save him, he had been casting a spell!

Rushuna and her friends were engulfed in a burst of light. Three men were revealed when the light faded, one each standing between a character and the army. The one standing in front of Rushuna wore all black clothes with black hair in sagging spikes. In front of Yajirou stood a man with messy blonde hair and dressed a dark muscle shirt with loose pants. Finally, standing in front of Mikan was a man with the opposite look of the first one, wearing an almost completely white knightish uniform and white hair.

The army didn't seem impressed as they just held their weapons in a ready position, as if they were werely waiting for the signal to fire. Amanda scoffed at Kyle's attempt to protect the main characters and then simply said, "Fire."

Fire they did, each and every man in the army shot off their Flash of a Demon weapons. As the blasts headed towards the main characters, the summoned men said to them in unison, "Stay behind us."

The black wearing one held up his hands and then the air in front of him began to ripple and warp. Every blast that got close to him simply dissappated. Yajirou's defender merely stood his ground with Yajirou himself fearful for both his safety and the man's. Each blast that hit the guy did nothing to him, might as well have been a breeze blowing at a Black Oak. As for the last one, he was creating a barrier apparently made out of some kind of energy to defend Mikan. The blasts had as much effect on his barrier as they did on the one that stood his ground.

Amanda stood with her mouth agape as her army was effortlessly prevented from harming the main characters by three people with apparently supernatural powers. Shaking her head to clear it, she reached her hands into her kimono sleeves and pulled out two tanto knives and charged Kyle, who hadn't moved since the summoning. With deft reflexes, Kyle reached into the same invisible hole from before and brought out his Omni-weapon sphere. Amanda's tanto clanged against a katana blade that sprouted from the sphere. Out of the opposite side of the sphere sprouted a Japanese style hilt that Kyle grasped so he could use his weapon as intended.

"Now I get to test out my Omni-weapon. Don't bother trying to break it, it's made out of Realitium."
Amanda scowled something fierce as she used her Sue powers to turn her tanto into a pair of Nodachi. Of course, since she was a Mary Sue, it was easy for her to wield a Nodachi in each hand. All Kyle did in response was to increase the length of his hilt so he'd have more room to grip. Both took a combat stance as they seemed to gauge each other. Then suddenly, they seemed to blur out of existence with only the clanging of metal on metal to indicate their clash. Each clang was accompanied by a powerful shockwave as every blow forcefully made a sonic boom.

More and more, the clangs and shockwaves came. The main characters were trying to watch this engagement while their defenders held off the army. Mikan wasn't able to follow the battle, while Yajirou could just manage to see their blurs and Rushuna saw them move at speeds she herself could move if she pushed herself. All of a sudden, after several minutes of fighting, a powerful clang rang out and the sound of metal breaking was heard. Reappearing in front of the mansion, Amanda clutched her two broken Nodachi as she fell to her knees.

In an instant, Kyle appeared next to her and slapped a Prohibitor on her wrist. Everything vanished; the mansion, the army, and the main characters. Other than the forest itself, all that was left was Amanda, Kyle and the characters he summoned.

-

Kyle had given Amanda to the society as he got ready to send his characters home. Tash, however, wanted an explanation for why they were there and how they were so strong.

"It's like this, Tash. They come from a completely made up world that's always at war. This world has three main countries in this war and each of these countries made one Super-soldier Homunculus. In this case, a Homunculus is what they call an artificial human."

Tash frowned and then asked, "And this is supposed to mean something to me?"

Sighing a bit, Kyle continued, "In this world, there are three basic entities; Humans, Golems, and Homunculi. What seperates them is stated in this saying, 'The Mind thinks, the Heart feels, the Soul lives'. Humans in that world have Mind, Heart, and Soul. Golems don't have any of those. Homunculi on the other hand, only have Mind and Heart. They can think and they can feel, but they can't live."

Kyle shook his head, "They are alive, but they can't live. Simply put, Soul in this world is the ability to express life."

She seemed to consider this until she said, "This is all fascinating, but it doesn't really explain why they're so powerful."

"That's the easy part. I said that they were Super-soldiers, "Kyle pointed to each in turn, starting with the one dressed in black. "Desolation was given the ability to generate and control resonance. Arsenal can create just about any weapon he wants short of a Weapon of Mass Destruction from material he stores in his own body. Paradigm here holds the power to make just about any kind of barrier or energy field he wants. Thing is, when I first thought of them, I didn't really understand how powerful their abilities were."

He said that last part with a embarrassed expression. Turning to his creations, he performed the same technique he used to summon them and returned them home. At that instance, his stomach growled at him. Looking down at his his belly, he let out an embarrassed chuckle and said to Tash, "I forgot that the Accelerator ability from Wild Arms affects metabolism. I'm going to raid Adrian's food stocks, so if you need me in a bit, you'll know where to find me for about an hour-ish."